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Eric Enge @stonetemple
Penguin 4.0
Eric Enge @stonetemple
ERIC ENGE, CEO
STONE TEMPLE CONSULTING
NOTABLE SPEAKER, BOOK
AUTHOR & ENTREPRENEUR 2016 US Search Awards 2016 Search Personality of the Year
2016 Landys Search Marketer of the Year
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Penguin #1 (1.0): April 24, 2012
Penguin #2: May 25, 2012
Penguin #3: October 5, 2012
Penguin #4 (2.0): May 22, 2013
Penguin #5: October 4, 2013
Penguin 3.0: October to December 2014
Penguin Drove Large Traffic Drops
Early Algo Release Dates:
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Prior Releases of Penguin Penalized Sites
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Penguin Used to Penalize the Entire Site
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Prior Versions Updated Rarely, Often Less Than Once Per Year
“Always Look
at the Bright
Side of Life”
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Types of Links Targeted by Penguin
Web
Directories
Article
directories
International
links
Bad anchor
text mix
Coupon Codes
Poor Quality
Widgets
Affiliate Spam
Other Non-
Editorial Links
Request
removal first
… then
disavow the
rest
Eric Enge @stonetemple
What About Penguin 4.0?
Released on September 23, 2016
Represents a Sea Change in the way Penguin Works
No Longer Assesses a “Penalty”
Simply Discounts the “Bad Links”
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Penguin 4.0 Adjusts Link Signal Weights
Link Signals
Database
Penguin adjusts
weighting of links
as they are
discovered
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Penguin 4.0 is More Granular
“Penguin is now more granular. Penguin
now devalues spam by adjusting ranking
based on spam signals, rather than
affecting ranking of the whole site.”
Google’s Gary Illyes
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Penguin 4.0 is More Granular
Kristian
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Normal Crawling Drives Link Discovery
Updating the
Database does
NOT immediately
impact rankingsLink Signals
Database
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New Links Applied to Your Page
When It’s Recrawled
Link Signals
Database
Eric Enge @stonetemple
New Penguin Releases Will …
1. Address New Link Types
2. Adjust Ranking Weights
3. Process Collections of Link
Signals in New Ways
Eric Enge @stonetemple
How Impact of Penguin Releases Will be Felt
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Speculation: Disavow Files Used
to Train Penguin
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Econsultancy.com, DA 83 Site
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Jon Cooper, PointBlankSEO
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Reconsideration Requests are
Irrelevant
“Absolutely no reconsideration request can
help you with Penguin. Reconsideration
requests are for manual actions, and you
can only file one if we have an incident
created internally. Penguin doesn't create
an incident, it never did and I'm very
certain it never will. Reconsideration
requests do not and will not help with
Penguin.”
Google’s Gary Illyes
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E-Commerce
Site Example
Source: Marie Haynes
Eric Enge @stonetemple
E-Commerce
Site Example
Source: Marie Haynes
Eric Enge @stonetemple
E-Commerce
Site Example
Source: Marie Haynes
Eric Enge @stonetemple
E-Commerce
Site Example
Source: Marie Haynes
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Nationally
Recognized
Brand
Source: Marie Haynes
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Nationally
Recognized
Brand
Source: Marie Haynes
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Nationally
Recognized
Brand
Source: Marie Haynes
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Nationally
Recognized
Brand
Source: Marie Haynes
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Large B2B
Company
Source: Marie Haynes
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Large B2B
Company
Source: Marie Haynes
Eric Enge @stonetemple
What Can you Do?
Well, Actually,
Go Get New
Great Links
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Do Prune Your Bad Links on a Regular Basis
Disavow Bad
Links Found!
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Also, Worry About Manual Reviews
Can Penguin
Lead to Manual
Reviews?
Eric Enge @stonetemple
What About Negative SEO?
“So the thing about negative SEO is that, to
this date, I haven’t seen a single…well, not
just me but also the ranking team hasn’t
seen a single case where it was really
negative SEO. It was more about clients not
revealing details to the SEO who was doing
the cleanup, for example”
Google’s Gary Illyes
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Eric Enge
eenge@stonetemple.com
@stonetemple
+Eric Enge
(508) 962-8474
www.stonetemple.com
Thank You!

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